


a mother's love

by chapter_61



Series: COC 2019 [13]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Carry On Countdown (Simon Snow), Carry On Countdown 2019, DEC 7 - Parental Figures, Day 13: Parental Figures, M/M, Post-Book 1: Carry On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21708823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chapter_61/pseuds/chapter_61
Summary: “Simon?” Mrs. Grimm asks as they ascend the stairs after dinner. They halt and look at each other.“Yes, Mrs. Grimm?” Simon answers, still looking at Baz questioningly, but he doesn’t seem to know what this is about.She stays at the bottom of the stairs and says: “Could I talk to you for a minute?”“Uhm, sure,” Simon says. He throws Baz another look, who reaches out and squeezes his hand once. Then he disappears upstairs. Great.Simon lingers for a moment, eyes on the hallway that swallowed Baz up, and then slowly descends again. He’s unsure of what this is going to be, and is almost scared to make eye contact with Mrs. Grimm, who’s smiling at him warmly.She seems to sense his nerves. “Don’t worry, I am not planning on giving you the boyfriend talk.”
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Series: COC 2019 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553623
Comments: 2
Kudos: 120
Collections: Carry On Countdown 2019





	a mother's love

“Simon?” Mrs. Grimm asks as they ascend the stairs after dinner. They halt and look at each other.

“Yes, Mrs. Grimm?” Simon answers, still looking at Baz questioningly, but he doesn’t seem to know what this is about.

She stays at the bottom of the stairs and says: “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

“Uhm, sure,” Simon says. He throws Baz another look, who reaches out and squeezes his hand once. Then he disappears upstairs. Great.

Simon lingers for a moment, eyes on the hallway that swallowed Baz up, and then slowly descends again. He’s unsure of what this is going to be, and is almost scared to make eye contact with Mrs. Grimm, who’s smiling at him warmly.

She seems to sense his nerves. “Don’t worry, I am not planning on giving you the boyfriend talk.”

The word warms him up inside and he can feel his cheeks heat up. He smiles back tensely.

When he’s reached her, Mrs. Grimm leads him towards one of the sitting rooms. There’s a fireplace (it’s not lit—it’s summer) and the furniture looks surprisingly cozy, unlike other parts of the manor, where everything looks cold and stiff. He can feel himself relax slightly.

She gestures to a grey armchair and he sits down.

“My apologies for taking you alone for a minute,” she says, lowering herself on the couch across from him, “but I’ll let you go back to Basilton soon.”

“It’s alright, Mrs. Grimm,” he tells her. He just wants to get this over with, whatever it might be. Maybe she’s still angry about the whole old-family-war thing that was going on. Or maybe she just wanted to see what the most powerful mage was like in private. Too bad, his magic is all gone.

“Please call me Daphne, hun.”

He blinks at her. “I… sure.”

“Well,” Daphne starts, “I’ve known about you for years now, and I’ve obviously seen you with Christmas, but I haven’t really talked to you much.”

He nods, it’s true. Baz’ family is intimidating and he doesn’t like being alone with them, so he always stays close to Baz.

“But now you’re dating my son, so I think it’s high time I got to know you, don’t you think?”

“Your son?” He blurts out.

“In everything but blood, yes.” She says in a no-nonsense tone.

He’s speechless for a moment. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t being rude. I just don’t...” He trails off.

Daphne waits patiently.

“I don’t… have a lot of experience with families.” It hurts to get the words out.

Daphne’s eyes start watering and she lifts her hand over her mouth. He begins to worry. Did he say anything wrong? He probably shouldn’t have brought up his personal issues like that. This isn’t one of his therapy sessions, this is his boyfriend’s mother. Stepmother. Practically the same thing.

He wants to say something but isn’t sure what. He reaches out slightly but immediately stops. Merlin, he’d rather be anywhere else than here.

Then, Daphne sniffs and he thinks he truly messed everything up. He makes to get up and hurry out of the room, when she pushes a stray strand of hair behind her ear and says, “I’m sorry, Simon.”

Unsure what to say, he stays quiet.

“I’m so sorry for what has happened to you during your childhood. No person should have to go through that, and I wish things had gone differently for you.”

Well, that wasn’t what he expected. He doesn’t want her to be upset about something small like that, though. “It wasn’t that bad. The homes were… The people there were… Not that bad. I was just glad to go to Watford every year.”

“And then at Watford you were being used by the Mage as his own child soldier.”

“It wasn’t like that.” He feels the need to defend the Mage, but he knows he shouldn’t. His therapist has been telling him about grooming and he knows she’s right, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

Daphne seems to realise there’s no point to that conversation. “It must’ve been hard growing up like that. I’m glad you had your friends.”

He smiles slightly at the mention of Penny and he can feel the tension seep from his body. He didn’t even notice he was clenching his hands. He relaxes them now.

“Yeah, Penny’s great. I’ll miss her when she moves to America for her boyfriend.” It’s not something he likes to think about, but Penny reassured him multiple times that they’d stay in touch.

“Speaking of boyfriends,” Daphne says, “how did that happen between you and Basilton? He doesn’t want to tell me. I feel like I deserve to know the gossip.”

Simon snorts at that. “I think there’s always been something between us, I was just too dumb to realise.”

“I’m glad for you two, I’ve never seen Basilton as happy as he’s been the last few months.”

“Really?” Somehow, that doesn’t seem right. He knows Baz wasn’t very happy at Watford, having to share Simon’s room. Not because of the reasons Simon always suspected, but that’s something entirely different. However, he thought Baz would be happy at home, with his siblings that he clearly adores.

“Whenever he’d come home, he’d be sulky and moody. It disappeared whenever he played with the younglings though, thankfully. But Malcolm always worsened his mood.”

“Can’t imagine why,” he mumbles.

“Quite,” she agrees, surprisingly. “Anyway, thank you. For making Basilton this happy.”

“I love him,” he tells her, helplessly.

Daphne gives him a watery smile, bright nonetheless. She doesn’t look like Baz in the slightest, but there have been a few rare moments when he’s smiled exactly like that. He wants to tell her, but he figures that’d be weird.

“Well, just know that our family is a package deal. That’s also partly why I wanted to talk to you, to welcome you to our family.”

Now it’s Simon’s turn to have tears welling up in his eyes. “Really?”

“Of course, Simon.” She seems very persistent. He doesn’t know what to do with that. “Come here,” she says as she stands up.

He follows her lead and stands in front of her. Should he give her a hand? A handshake is a normal family ritual, right?

Then Daphne pulls him to her and wraps her arms around him.

Oh.

He carefully lifts his arms and hugs her back stiffly. When Daphne doesn’t let go, he relaxes and burrows closer. Tears roll from his eyes but Daphne doesn’t mention it. She just holds him.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

Daphne pulls back and wipes his tears away with her tender hands. She brushes a few curls away from his face, and then cups his cheeks. She looks him in the eyes, a warm expression on her face that almost makes Simon tear up again, and she says. “Welcome to the family, love.”

He has to bite his lip to keep in the sob that almost escapes his mouth. Is this what it feels like to have a family? To have an adoring mother that casually touches you all the time and wipes your tears and gives you hugs? It’s something he never knew he missed in his life. He doesn’t have the words to reply.

Daphne pulls him down a little and places a soft kiss on his forehead. “Go back to Basilton, now. We’ll see you in the morning.”

He can only nod and tears himself away from her embrace. He immediately misses the warmth, but his heart is now so filled to the brim with something he doesn’t want to name yet, that he doesn’t really mind.

He goes back upstairs to his boyfriend.


End file.
